


hey, mister from the sea.

by ココダ - coco (arurun)



Series: dad I swear it's not my fault but [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Parenting, Cute Kids, Gen, Scars, accidental adoption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24016747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arurun/pseuds/%E3%82%B3%E3%82%B3%E3%83%80%20-%20coco
Summary: This kid with green hair won't stop staring at him.Or the story of how Loto manages to adopt a pair of sword-obsessed kids from a totally different island.
Series: dad I swear it's not my fault but [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731370
Comments: 9
Kudos: 435





	hey, mister from the sea.

Long story short, he accidentally drifted a little too close to the calm belt while he was sleeping, almost got eaten by a sea king, and decided to swim to the closest shore.

Loto drags his sword out of the sea first, before dragging his body the rest of the way. 

He pries off his stickly wet shirt, squeezing it dry.

...there’s someone beside him. 

The kid was there when Loto swam in, and only stayed there watching the show when Loto started climbing back up onshore. 

It’s a kid with green hair, and he looks almost as young as Luffy.

And he’s staring. 

Staring very, very intently at the nasty scar at Loto’s side, and his eyes are so absorbed that Loto has to wonder what’s so fascinating about flesh that looked like scrunched-up meat at his stomach.

“What’s so interesting, kid?” he asks.

And the kid immediately lifts his head with eyes full of such childish curiosity.

“Hey, mister, does your stomach mouth open?”

Loto bursts out laughing so abruptly that he almost falls right back into the sea.

-

So the boy’s name is Zoro.

“It doesn’t open? Really? You’re not lying to me?” 

Someone reads way too much horror manga, and Loto wants to talk to whoever taught this kid about them.

“No, no it doesn’t.”

Zoro blinks for a while more. He’s imitating Loto now, sitting cross-legged facing out to the sea, back straightened in a way he’s obviously not used to.

“Hey, weird mister from the sea,” Zoro says, “are you a swordsman?”

Loto runs a hand over his sword. 

“Not really,” he admits. “I used to be, but I can’t use it as well anymore. Now this sword is wasted on me, but it’s too precious for me to let it go, so I always carry it with me.”

Zoro stares, like he doesn’t quite understand. 

Then he proudly announces, “I don’t get it!”

Loto laughs. 

-

The island they’re on is called Shimotsuki. That’s not too far from Dawn, but he’ll have to find a new boat, so he first walks around town to find a Good Samaritan.

He walks around half of the city and acquires a Den Den Mushi to call Makino about his slight delay in returning. Then he turns around and stares at his terrible stalker. 

“Zoro, why are you following me?” he asks.

Zoro straightens, then ducks away, pretending he hasn’t been caught. “We uh! Just happen to be walking in the same direction!” he declares defiantly.

Loto sighs.

“Okay, mister I-just-happened-to-be-walking-in-the-same-direction, would you like to walk beside me instead?” he hollers.

Zoro stares for a second longer.

Then he runs up and grabs at the edge of Loto’s coat, holding on.

Loto pats him on the head. “Oh good. Now you won’t get lost.”

Zoro explodes, “I don’t get  _ lost _ !!”

He rents an inn for the night and treats Zoro to dinner before sending him off. He’s not sure which way Zoro runs off to. Does he have parents or is he living like Sabo?

-

The next morning, the amount of kid stalkers increased to two.

_ Mitosis _ , he thinks in horror.

God, where’s his pipe? He wants to smoke.

There’s no other explanation to this nonsense these children are multiplying asexually through cell division ands--

“Hey, Mister from the Sea,” Zoro takes his hand and tugs at his coat, “can you show Kuina your weird stomach mouth?”

Maybe Loto should’ve just drowned in the Calm Belt.

-

“Hey, Mister from the Sea, show us your sword!”

Kuina is a delight. She’s older than Zoro, but probably still younger than Ace. It’s nice to find a girl so interested in swordsmanship.

Loto sits down with a sigh, and the children settle on either side of his lap. It’s like he suddenly has two very interested puppies now, because they’re crawling closer and closer to his face. 

He holds out his Oodachi before him, and draws it from the sheath. 

Turning it so the flat of the blade is toward him, he sets it against the sea to admire the delicate, wave-patterned ridge.

The hilt is a deep green, the guard is gold, and the cords are a deep scarlet.

“Her name is Ishikirimaru,” he tells them, and they make sounds of awe.

He wonders for a moment if the kids are going to lunge for the blade from overexcitement (Zoro is vibrating there and Kuina has been squealing for a full minute now,) but to their credit, they just stare from a distance.

At some point, Zoro ends up on his shoulders, trying to get a closer look without stepping forward.

Loto sheaths his sword again.

“Can I hold it?!” Zoro says. “Please?!”

“No.”

“Please?!” this time Kuina says it in unison, “I promise I won’t drop it!”

“No,” Loto says again, slotting the sword back to his belt, “kids, this sword is taller than both of you, and just about as heavy as both of you combined. No.”

Here comes the teary eyes.

Loto groans longsufferingly.

-

“Sorry to trouble you with them,” Koushiro is a pleasant man, all things considered. 

The two kids are highly comfortable being reeled in by him, and turns out, this is where Zoro has been living since he wandered in trying to take over the dojo a few years ago.

Goddamn, kid, you are like five years old where are your  _ parents _ ?

“It’s not a problem at all,” he bows, smiling. “In fact, I’m the one that has to express my gratitude. You’re lending me a rowboat, after all.”

“I’m still rather worried, are you sure you would prefer that over the fishing boat at the dock?” 

“It’s fine, really.”

From there, Loto can see the inside of the dojo, where the group of children are practicing sword strikes with their shinai. 

It’s almost nostalgic. His beginning marine days were like that too…

“Hey, Mister from the Sea,” Kuina calls him, “when do you think you’ll be coming back?”

Loto thinks for a bit.

“You’re coming back, right?” Zoro asks, and there’s that desperate lilt to his voice that accuses abandonment.

Dear god, he accidentally got more kids, and these kids already have a father.

“Of course I’m coming back,” he says, because any other answer is probably a crime. “I’ll make sure to stop by the next time I make a trip.”

And Zoro brightens, like he’s just been promised mountains of candy.

Kuina raises her hand, “then, I’m gonna get taller by the time you get back! Will you let me touch your sword then?”

“Ah, no fair!” Zoro accuses, “I wanna touch the sword too!” he runs up and grabs Loto’s trousers, “Mister from the Sea, please please please please please?”

Loto looks toward the sky and counts to ten.

He looks at Koushiro. Koushiro is just smiling fondly at the sight, like this doesn’t have anything to do with him.

Dear lord  _ save me. _

-

-

“They’re so cute!” Makino says.

In the little photograph, Little Zoro and Kuina are sitting on either side of his lap, grinning brightly with a bold V in each hand. Loto just looks tired. 

“I wonder when Ace, Sabo and Luffy will get to meet their new siblings?”

“Shut  _ up _ , Makino!” Loto sobs drunkenly, bent over the table and holding the empty mug on the table. “This is all Garp’s fault!!”

-

“What's wrong with Dad?”

“Makino, Makino, why is dad crying?”

“Don’t worry Luffy, he’s just thinking about why he loves you guys.”

-

Kuina thrusts her shinai forward. Loto easily sidesteps it, tucking his own shinai behind him to deflect Zoro’s little swipe to his legs.

The exchange continues in a cycle. War cries and the strike of wood against wood.

By the end of it, the two children collapse in a heap, and Loto stands in the center of the field, smiling slightly. 

“Oh, is that it?”

Zoro’s too tired to say anything. 

“One more time!” Kuina declares, holding her shinai with shaky hands.

And this time, she fares better. She gets a strike in on Loto’s knee, though Loto immediately flips her right off and she goes flying.

“I did it!” Kuina cheers, ignoring the new bruise on her arm.

Loto grins. “That was great, Kuina!”

He never thought he would enjoy training kids this much. Maybe this was why Garp loved to torture him all the time.

-

“This katana is called an Oodachi,” Loto said, raising Ishikirimaru in the air. “You Know the difference between Oodachi, Uchigatana, and Tanto, right?”

“It’s just really really long!” Zoro raised his hand first.

“Tanto are really short!” Kuina added, “and Uchigatana are about the size of the shinai we use and--”

“Then there’s the Nodachi, and the Wakizashi, and--”

God,  _ sword nerds, both of them _ . Loto only asked one question and they’re giving him a rundown of an entire research paper on the topic.

At some point, it dissolved into an argument of which was the better sword to use, and now they were stuck between mixing a couple of sword lengths or using a pair of similar lengths.

Loto just stares at the chaos.

“You’re the only idiot that’d hold a sword in your  _ mouth _ !” Kuina pinches the boy’s cheeks.

“Yer jus’ jealous cos you can’t do it too!” Zoro tries to retaliate, but his arms are too short and he manages to grab her collar and a bunch of her hair.

Loto takes a drag of his pipe smoke.

_ Ah, peace _ .


End file.
